For Those Who Love to Take Chances

Ten years ago, muscle motoring’s hormonal muse was a 450-horsepower, twin-turbocharged, all-wheel-drive, six-speed, six-cylinder, 190 m.p.h. super-car called the Porsche 959.

It gave the Feds fits. Bad breath and no exhaust cleansers, squeaked the Environmental Protection Agency. Must have tougher braces and bumpers for softening smacks against hard objects, snorted the Department of Transportation.

Tough cheese, said Porsche. So apart from a couple of marginally legal imports, the 959 stayed home and Europeans had all the high-speed fun. Which is why, goes one business belief, theme parks don’t do well in Europe.

This year, motoring’s poster child is the Porsche 911 Turbo.

It is a 400-horsepower, twin-turbocharged, all-wheel-drive, six-speed, six-cylinder, 182 m.p.h. super-car. This time its breath is sweet, its bones crash-resistant and, like pork chops and pillow stuffings, the car is U.S.-government approved.

And if that has the 1996 Porsche Turbo sounding remarkably, comfortably, wonderfully close to being a street-legal Porsche 959, then so much the better for us.

In truth, Porsche makes no attempt to distance its 1996 Turbo from its thoroughly rude and politically gauche 959. It acknowledges that bi-turbos, all-wheel drive and other traction technologies were lifted directly from the 959. The new 911 Turbo even rolls down the same production line as the factory’s competition versions.

Same 18-inch wheels worn by the Porsche 959 that won the 22-day Paris-Dakar rally in 1986. Same flat-six engine and system of multi-disc viscous clutches splitting power between front and rear wheels. Same lightening techniques with ounces saved by slimmer bolts, magnesium bits and aluminum pieces.

Above all, the 911 Turbo shares the 959’s status as a stunning, breathtaking performance automobile. Not the ultimate Porsche, of course, because we said that about the 1976 Turbo and there are years and more cars to come.

But this 1996 iteration certainly is a fine apogee for drivers who assign souls to their machines and who bathe in the spiritualism of high-speed, disciplined motoring.

Accept this going in: The Turbo is not for those who own automobiles as household appliances or have to ask where or why anybody would possibly want to drive 160 m.p.h.

This is a sports car of blinding pace--moving from rest to 100 m.p.h. in 10 seconds--with acceleration and cornering actually accompanied by palpable G-forces. But it also has 13-inch racing disc brakes--30% larger than the heftiest pickups--and calipers the size of gorilla paws to make sure the car slows as effectively as it goes.

As a matter of fact, braking is so firm, so deliberate in stopping from 60 m.p.h. in less than three seconds, one will wish cages around one’s eyeballs.

And that even-wheeled traction magic--which automatically proportions torque from front to rear while consigning adhesion and safety braking from left to right--elevates the Turbo’s road-holding to a new science. Especially with total management of the car’s slipstream and surface air pressures, from front dam to whale tail to underpan, for maximum down-force and minimum drag.

This car doesn’t just sprint around corners. It digs its claws in and pulls itself around. It doesn’t simply overtake other cars. It dials up warp speed and turns them to stone.

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In the majority of sports cars, drivers attain the limits of their relationship with the vehicle and back off, leaving the car to smirk its superiority. The Turbo recalibrates human skills, allowing us to drive at levels we previously only bragged we could attain.

And it is all done with such grace, civility and a noticeable talent for making the achievement of three-digit speeds appear quite casual. Even peaceful.

Magic carpets wrapped around rocket sleds, however, require pots of gold. Porsche wants 140,000 deutsche marks for its 911 Turbo. Or $99,000. Take heart. That was the cost of the old Turbo, which was only rear-wheel drive, had 45 less horsepower and one less turbocharger, forward gear and exhaust pipe.

Externally, a 911 Turbo is a 911 is a 911. That means a near-immortal silhouette: a low-slung beetle-back with nose sloping to the ground and lines Porsche first drew more than three decades ago.

About the only distinctions for 1996 are a softer, melted look with vaned vents for brake cooling beneath the front corners. Also big alloy wheels made unique by five hollow spokes as further proof of Porsche’s obsession with weight reduction.

Retained, of course, is the Turbo trademark of huge, flared, broad rear fenders. They house another Porsche brand: huge, broad rear tires 10 inches across and two inches wider than the front rubber to better handle and control all that power.

Internally, a similar sense of history applies.

But here it doesn’t work. This time, shades of the past are a commentary on Porsche’s stubborn resistance to change rather than any conscious retention of heritage.

Gauges are archaic and Porsche remains the only car with a dial telling how much oil is in the engine system. Lousy positioning creates constant misoperation of the information computer lever when one is groping for the turn signal.

Numerics and symbols on heater and cooling controls are in a dead Bavarian language, incomprehensible to the naked eye and fertile brain. Not that it matters. Those on the left side are hidden beneath the steering wheel anyway.

Take that wheel. Pretty please. Now toss it away and replace it with something adjustable.

And we never did understand what appeared to be a warning light, an illuminated exclamation point on the dash and a console toggle switch. Its only function seems to be making sure it is noticed.

Seating is best described as old geezer Recaros delivering high, leather-covered comforts within what basically is a competition car without numbers.

Therein another delight. For despite a performance envelope larger than most circus tents, the Turbo can be a placid city driver with clutch, brake and shifting pressures no stiffer than a Honda Accord. So driving from A to British Columbia falls somewhere between soft labor and convalescence.

Try doing that in a Lamborghini Diablo or other super-cars of the genus Sporticus sacroillium contortu s.

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Still, nobody buys a Porsche Turbo for its Asian serenity. They want to entertain the temptress and indulge the Hugh Grant skulking deep in all of us.

Skin prickles the moment the engine fires and creates an enticing, uneven, metallic blatting and barking back there where a 3.6-liter flat-six is buried among a maze of inter-coolers, ducting and plumbing.

Clutch travel is long but gentle. Throttle pressures are those of a compact sedan. Takeoffs are almost mundane. Unless one cares to stomp and hair-trigger the important pedals, which ignites a ferocity that has all tires stuttering and the car lunging into motion like an Apollo Ranger bottle rocket.

Hold first gear a heartbeat too long and the rev limiter starts strangling the power. A quick, easy change into second produces calm, a deeper purr and absolute balance. Into third, stand on it, and Buckaroo Banzai is loose again.

Such performance, of course, narrows the dimensions of the 911 Turbo. There’s little trunk room for groceries and rear space for only two overnight bags. The seats don’t track back quite far enough and there’s more leg and head room in Air France economy class. And much better wine service.

Just about any spirited action in a 911 Turbo is not something that should be attempted at home. This can be an angry car best handled only by those with a full understanding of machinery and life’s risk.

It is for adventuresome marrieds, well-heeled but sensible young professionals, retired race car drivers, practicing race car drivers and emerging race car drivers.

Anyone, in fact, who was unable to get their cookie hooks on a Porsche 959 first time around.

* Paul Dean’s Behind the Wheel column is published every other Friday.

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1996 Porsche 911 Turbo

THE GOOD: Legal return of Porsche’s 959 super-car. Awe-inspiring performance, awe-striking technology, awesome looks. But surprisingly gentle handling.

THE BAD: Some archaic ergonomics.

THE UGLY: Price that prohibits.

Cost

* Base, $99,000.

* As tested, $104,802. (Includes two air bags, all-wheel drive, anti-lock brakes, leather power seats, sunroof, cruise control, central locking and alarm, six-speaker sound system, and power windows and mirrors as standard equipment. Optional lumbar supports on both seats and remote six-disc CD changer.)

Engine

* 3.6 liter, twin turbocharged, horizontally opposed, six cylinders developing 400 horsepower.

Type

* Rear-engine, all-wheel drive, 2+2, high performance sports car.

Performance

* 0-60 m.p.h., as tested, 4.1 seconds.

* Top speed, manufacturer’s track test, 182 m.p.h.

* Fuel consumption, EPA city and highway, 13 and 19 m.p.g.

Curb Weight

* 3,490 pounds.